Monday, October 13, 2014

Review ~ Married One Night by Amber Leigh Williams

About the Book:

What
happened in Vegas…followed her home!

Olivia
Lewis is not the marrying type. So when a wild weekend in Vegas leaves her with
a surprise husband, she's happy to sign anything to erase her mistake—even if
that mistake is handsome, charming and comes with an English accent.
Fortunately, her groom has other plans.

Bestselling
author Gerald Leighton knows he can make his new bride fall in love with him—he
just needs time. In exchange for a quickie divorce, Olivia grudgingly gives him
a few weeks to attempt to woo her. And whether Olivia likes it or not, Gerald
plans on using every second to win her heart!

Olivia Lewis woke up in a Sin City penthouse amidst
petal-strewn, silk sheets. She bolted upright in bed…and groaned, wavering as
the world turned. And turned again.

Okay, makethat silk sheets, rose petals…and the
most vicious hangover of her life.

Hissing, she pressed a hand over her eyes, the other on
her head to stop the contents from sloshing around. Her mouth felt like
sandpaper, and her stomach writhed. Obviously the obscene amount of liquor
she’d consumed the night before was turning on her in sickly rebellion.

“Oh, holy moly,” she wheezed. “What the hell happened
last night?” Peering around, she squinted against the desert sunlight streaming
through the undraped floor-to-ceiling window that spanned the entire left wall
of the bedroom. At the sight of several curiously unmentionable items scattered
across the bed and floor, she became more than a little curious about the
events of the previous evening. Especially when she saw the tattered remains of
her red dress hooked on the wall sconce at the other end of the room.

Frowning, she lifted the covers and looked underneath.
She was naked as sin. And she’d spent enough nights with men to know how she
should feel the next day. With a groan, she laid back into the pillows and
pulled the covers over her head.

So sometime during the night, she had snuck away from the
bachelorette party for her friend Roxie Honeycutt and gotten frisky—very
frisky—with an unknown man.

It wasn’t her first one-night stand. Nor did she think it
would be her last. But considering she’d been the hostess of Roxie’s
bachelorette party and it had been her idea to bring the bash to Vegas, Olivia
felt shame rushing up to meet her.

She sighed, flopping her arms over her head. “Well done,
Liv,” she muttered at the ceiling. It was painted with a mural complete with
puffy white clouds and baby-faced cherubs.

How many inappropriate things had those cherubs seen last
night?

Olivia pursed her lips, thinking back hard to what she
could remember of the past twenty-four hours. She and her friends had flown
into Vegas, then checked into their casino hotel room. They’d gone to a bar…no,
a club. The venue had been packed elbow to elbow. Olivia’s other friend and
invitee, Adrian Carlton, had kept ordering drinks for the three of them.
Tequila shots. That would explain the gargantuan headache pounding away at the
inside of Olivia’s head and the base of her neck.

Then…there’d been dancing on the parquet dance floor. And
a man. Olivia braved the thumping, eyes watering as she thought hard to bring
him into sharper focus. She got only an impression—tall. Tailored suit. A black
necktie, which she’d had fun unknotting later here in the penthouse…with her
teeth?

She grimaced and focused again on the man’s features.
Blond hair, a bit tousled as the night wore on. There was a limo, one
exclusively for Olivia and her mystery man. Some frisky business in the
backseat as Vegas lights blurred together outside the tinted windows. Yes,
she’d run her fingers through that gilded crown of his, raking her nails
lightly over his scalp. He’d liked that. Big, skillful hands on her hips.
Roaming over her back…getting lost in her hair. He’d spoken to her, sweet
endearments. She wasn’t usually one for sweet endearments—just the answer of
skin on skin and the satisfaction that came with it.

But he’d been different. Why, Olivia couldn’t say…. The
accent. His sweet words had been accentuated with a devastating—British?—accent
that had, quite literally, charmed the pants off her.

Olivia raised a hand to her hair as her scalp tingled in
remembrance. She smiled a bit at the memory, then closed her eyes on another
wave of fierce pounding. If she could summon enough energy to rise from the
rumpled bed, she might be able to find her purse amidst the chaos of the room.
There was aspirin in that little red handbag. She needed aspirin. ASAP.

Carefully, she sat up again and braced her hands in the
thick bedding. She waited for the world to stop revolving and settle back on
axis before taking a deep, bracing breath and pulling the covers back. Instant chills
racked her skin, made worse by the fine sheen of sweat courtesy of the savage
aftermath of tequila drinking.

She slung her legs over the side of the bed. Her toes
sank into a thick, black rug. Shivering, she wrapped the white, silk top sheet
around her, knotting it at her collarbone so that it stayed as she stood.

It took more effort than she would have liked to stay
upright. She reached forward to catch the wall as she staggered in the general
direction of what she hoped was a bathroom. The floor quaked beneath her and
she could feel dregs of nausea rising up from the pit of her stomach. Yes,
yes, that’d better be a bathroom.

Before Olivia could shoulder her way through the door, it
opened quickly. She felt herself pitch over, tripping over the edge of the
bedsheet. Cursing, she fell against the lean, chiseled chest of the man on the
other side of the bathroom doorjamb.

She heard his surprised whoosh just before his arms
snagged her under the shoulders and curled around her to keep her from falling
at his feet. Her cheek pressed tight against his sternum. He was so warm. The
deep timbre of a chuckle trebled beneath the ear pressed to his chest and
words, rough around the edges, came floating from his mouth. “Ah, she wakes.”

When she tried to pull herself back, he held her fast to
him for a moment longer to make sure she had her footing. With a murmured,
“Easy there, love,” he released her and she stepped away, seeking his face.

He was smiling. The soft expression was tense around the
edges, probably from what she could guess was a good deal of pounding happening
on the inside of his head, too. She drew in a breath. His eyes were a brilliant
shade of green. Dimples, or laugh lines, dug in around his mouth and the
corners of his eyes. A man who smiled often and laughed well, Olivia surmised.
His hair was blond and wet from a shower she assumed, judging by the steam
behind him. He’d combed the hair back from his forehead, leaving his high brow
bare.

A towel hung loosely around his waist. She blinked. She
was staring. But the longer she stared, the more she could remember from last
night, and the giddy spontaneity and blistering heat of all that had transpired
made her forget for a moment how miserable she felt.

And, bless him, he didn’t seem to mind the staring. He
was doing a good bit of his own. The smile on his lips deepened into a
full-fledged grin, eyes softening further as he took her in. “Well. Aren’t you
a sight for sore eyes.”

She found a smile curving at the corner of her mouth. He was
British. His words were enunciated with the high-class sounds of English
breeding and good humor. His voice was like fine-aged wine. Or whiskey.

Whiskey, she decided. It had a good, old-fashioned burn to it.

Keep it together. Lifting
her hands to the sheet knotted just under her collarbone, she made sure it was
in place before dragging a hand back through her long, curly, bedraggled
tresses. “Erm…good morning?” Olivia said, unsure of herself. Usually, she knew
how to navigate the awkward, morning-after interlude. But this stranger’s
clean-cut, unexpected appeal threw her for a loop.

He beamed and held out a hand, skimming far and above the
awkwardness of the situation with good-natured ease. “Gerald Leighton. It’s
lovely to meet you…again.”

She stared at the hand. Ignoring the wariness inside her,
she reached out and took it. Again, she felt warmth. She wanted him to fold his
hand close around hers until the chills deserted her. It was much larger than
her own. Built for creating, shaping. A sculptor’s hand. The fingers were long
and narrow. Aside from the absence of well-worn calluses and wrinkles, they
actually reminded her a bit of her grandfather’s, a life-long carpenter.

When she found nothing to say in return, he firmed his
lips together. Scanning her face a bit more carefully this time, a frown
touched his features. “Headache?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, wrinkling her nose and squinting
once more at the light. “I think tequila was the culprit.”

“I felt the same when I first woke,” he explained, voice
lowered gently. “Not to worry. A glass of water, a couple painkillers and a hot
shower set me halfway back to rights.” He stepped aside and lifted a hand to
the marble counter of the bathroom. “Aspirin’s there with a bottle of water.
There’s a robe, too, if you need it.”

She licked her lips as they both glanced back at the torn
dress. “I think it’s my only option at this point.”

Gerald ran a hand through his hair and she thought she
saw a wink of sheepishness flash in those kind, green eyes. For some reason,
her heart stumbled over itself.

She blinked. Was the tequila still in her system?

“I apologize…for the dress,” Gerald added quickly. “I’ll
be happy to reimburse you for it. Or I can have the concierge send out for
another one.”

Olivia lifted a hand to stop him. “It’s all right. I
brought other clothes with me. It shouldn’t be too much trouble. That is if
we’re in the same casino my friends and I are staying at. Please tell me this
is the Bellagio.”

“Yes,” he replied. “That’s what the hand towels say, at
any rate.”

“Good,” she said with a sigh of relief. She gazed
longingly at the shower. It was crooking its finger at her. Her feet were
starting to feel like ice cubes and the chills were coming back with a
vengeance.

“Take your time,” Gerald told her. “I’ll have something
sent up to eat. It should be here when you’re done.”

“Thanks, Gerald.” Olivia ducked into the bathroom. The
steam from his shower hugged her as he closed the door behind her. She locked
the door, crossed her arms over her chest and faced the long, fogged mirror above
the marble counter. Fearing what she might look like, Olivia went to the
glass-walled shower stall instead and turned the knob all the way to Hot.

*

Olivia meant to hurry, but she soon discovered that the
shower had two jet showerheads. And the towels. Oh, the towels were so big and
fluffy and, fresh off the heated rack, blessedly warm. She indulged a bit,
sitting at the vanity as she took some aspirin and dried her hair with the
available hair dryer. Her reflection still looked gray around the edges, but
there was nothing she could do about that. She hadn’t yet found her purse and
she didn’t carry much more than lipstick and concealer in it anyway.

Clearly, she hadn’t been prepared to meet some tall,
ridiculously good-looking and charming Englishman who made her tummy flutter
even after a night drinking round after round of Jose Cuervo.

While showering and then attempting to make herself
somewhat presentable, more memories from the night before came flashing back to
her. More drinks in the casino. More kissing Gerald in the elevator. God, she
hoped the hotel didn’t have cameras in there. Then there was the penthouse. The
penthouse sofa. The big, plush bed. Gerald. Clashing mouths, tangled limbs, and
staggering streams of need and pleasure.

Suddenly she was no longer cold, but instead felt nothing
but the heat from last night. Looking up at the mirror, she saw that her cheeks
were flushed and she scrubbed her palms over them to chase it. The Brit packed
a wallop. That was for damn sure. She took several careful breaths to beat back
the memories and high color and wrapped the white, hotel robe around her.

Fastening it with the rope around the waist, Olivia
exited the bathroom, regrettably leaving the enveloping steam behind for the
bawdy, orange gleam of midmorning Vegas spilling into the bedroom through that
long line of crystal-clear glass.

She, Roxie and Adrian had a flight to catch in a few
hours. Bearing that in mind, Olivia grabbed the shredded remains of her
strapless dress off the wall sconce, then bent to pick up her platform heels
off the floor. She had to get down on her hands and knees to locate her purse
under the bed…where she also found the pathetic remains of her underwear,
deciding to leave them where they had fallen. Rest in peace, Victoria’s
Secret.

Amber Leigh Williams lives on the Gulf Coast. A southern
girl at heart, she loves beach days, the smell of real books, relaxing at
her family’s lakehouse, and spending time with her husband, Jacob, and
their sweet, blue-eyed boy. When she’s not running after her young son and
three, large dogs, she can usually be found reading a good romance or
cooking up a new dish in her kitchen. She is represented by Joyce
Holland of the D4EO Literary Agency.

This book was sexy, sweet and surprising. I was drawn in from the beginning and it only got better as the pages went on.

I laughed, cried, sighed, and yes, I got angry once or twice too. There is something to be said about books and authors that evoke such a mixture of feelings.

Olivia wakes up in a strange bed with a hangover. Bits and pieces of the previous night come to her but most of it is a fog. She bumps into her mystery man and instantly gets hot and bothered but decides to restrain her libido and get out of dodge.After letting Olivia go, Gerald can't stop thinking about her. When he finds out some surprising news, he decides to go visit Olivia and see if she will give a relationship a try.

Olivia doesn't want what he is selling. Both are determined however to get the other to cave. If you like your romance with interesting characters, a decent amount of pages, a pace that is just right, and a plot that will keep you reading and not wanting to quit, you'll want to get this one!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. It was just wonderful. :-)

Don't forget to enter the Comment Incentive Giveaway. It is a great chance to win a book you'd like to have! The link can be found at the top of the page.

3 comments:

i don't know how i feel about her doing one night stand that easily ( and so often from what she says herself) but i think the story could be quite cute and from your review i would most than probably love it

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I am a middle aged wife and mother of three boys. Because life is often hectic, I self medicate with good books! It is a cheap form of therapy. I have found that it does wonders for my sanity! lol!
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